Thanks for everybody's input on this. I understand the point Sil was trying to get across, and I think we're sort of digressed from that, but I like/appreciate what everyone's said. There's some good knowledge and experience shared here

3xban wrote:I am still shocked when my recruiters remind me to wear a suit and tie when going for interviews. I look at them like "duh" but they have told me that they had recruits going in wearing jeans and such. Shocking how people don't know how to dress for success. I heard wise words once "Dress for the job you want, not for the job you have."

I've heard this before and have wondered a few things. So I understand that there's this societal hierarchy of clothes. Jeans and t-shirts, slacks and button-ups, 3 piece suits (not comprehensive, but an example). So the quote "dress for the job you want, not for the job you have." This implies that you'll need to wear clothes higher up on the clothes hierarchy to get a "better" job. Does this train of thought only apply to a job interview? Or does the type of clothes you wear to an interview reflect the clothes you'll be wearing on a daily basis (from an infosec position perspective)? For me, the job I want isn't wearing suits everyday. Is this really what higher security positions require? Or as I asked above, is it only for the interview process?

<rant>Maybe I'm just ignorant to the whole hiring process and what you wear to an interview implies, but I think that in this day in age where it's way more common that you can't judge a book by it's cover, we'd be evolving out of this "you need to wear a suit to get a better job" idea and actually interview for a persons knowledge.</rant>

In many large enterprises, they still grasp the old ways. The higher up managers are in suits and lower down the chain you get into more casual dress. In the smaller companies, it isn't so much but it does show the interviewer that you want to impress them. Remember you are part of the presentation. You wouldn't make a power point slide deck with nothing but words right? Of course not, you would lose your audience. You want to put nice graphs, images and clever quotes or such. Even if you are going to work for a small shop that spends their time in t-shirts and jeans, well you still want to show them you care enough to put on a tie for them. Remember all companies will have a customer and you may need to see that customer in person every so often.

Eventually many of us will want to shoot for that CSO/CISO position someday and sadly they sometimes have to doan a black suit instead of the blackhat (there was a video of this at some con, can't remember).

I still think the full suit in the NOC during 2nd shift is a bit much. That's just crazy.

Really though, most companies (at least everything but the very top) don't require a suit or even a tie in daily wear. It's really 1-3 days (pending on # of interviews) for you to wear a suit, then you can typically dress however you want. Isn't that a low risk to take to potentially land a new position?

l33t5h@rk wrote:Really though, most companies (at least everything but the very top) don't require a suit or even a tie in daily wear. It's really 1-3 days (pending on # of interviews) for you to wear a suit, then you can typically dress however you want. Isn't that a low risk to take to potentially land a new position?

Yep, agreed. My post was multi-faceted. I agree with the low risk/high gain. The rant was just building on the real question which you answered in the first part here. I was really just wondering what other peoples experiences were in security roles in other company's environments when it comes to dress codes - interviews vs daily clothing.